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Learning Electronics?

Piper

Piper

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I asked this over on the RA forums but I know we have a few electronics gurus here too. If someone wanted to learn more about the electronics, specifically the Arduino, can you recommend any good books to get started with? I kind of need to start at the basics and work my way up from there.

My goal is to get a basic understanding of what the various hardware parts/pieces do and how they interact. I want to be able to look at a schematic or Eagle file and understand what I'm looking at.

~Charlie
 
Charlie,
I'm in the same boat. Learning electronic basics in my copious spare time. However I wanted to get a basic foundation before I moved to the Arduino.

I'm starting with:
Make: Electronics
by Charles Platt

Then I'm moving to:
Programming Arduino
Getting Started with Sketches
by Simon Monk

Let me know if you find something you like.

Julio
 
"Learn more about electronics" was my (as usual, unfulfilled) new years resolution for 2013. In part because I wanted to mess with the Arduino in my Reef Angel beyond programming. I guess I will try the Charles Platt book since I have a Safari subscription.

I am glad to see I am not the only one interested in learning more about the hardware side.
 
A few good books are great.
But with tinkering like what you are doing, I would really suggest getting hands-on quickly.

Consider a starter kit, plus perhaps a proto-breadboard.
http://www.makershed.com/product_p/mkseeed12.htm

BTW: With the "Make Electronics" book above, also consider buying the component kit.
http://www.makershed.com/Make_Electronics_Components_Pack_1_p/mecp1.htm

---

That said : Arduino is getting a bit past its prime.
If I were to start over on my controller, I would probably use a Rasberry Pi.
Having a full OS, real internet and display, and real tools eliminates a LOT of hassles of the Arduino.
Although it is not as easy for simple hardware interfacing.
 
bondolo said:
Heh, I just happen to have a Raspberry Pi Model A as well.
Click to expand...
Trade you for an old Arduino I have sitting around.
:)
Kidding. But I do have a spare Arduino (I changed to the Mega) and various tools and parts.
So if people need some help, let me know.

Hey, if you have both, you can do what I had always wanted to try.
Use the Raspberry Pi as the main controller.
Communicate with various small Arduino clients using Xbee.
(Controller for entire house, not just aquarium)
 
Thanks for the input, everyone! I picked up Electronics All In One for Dummies on the way home today because that's all they really had at my local B&N but I was looking for the Make: Electronics book. Had a lot of good reviews on Amazon.

Mike - Yep, I wanted to tinker with making my own modules possibly. At the very least I wanted to understand what the modules I have now are really doing.

Mark - Raspberry Pi looks interesting. I believe someone was possibly working on integrating one of those boards with the RA but I just don't recall what they were trying to accomplish with it.

I do plan on picking up a kit to play around with soon. I'm definitely a kinesthetic type of learner. First I need to understand why you want a resistor to do pull-ups :)

~Charlie
 
Piper said:
... First I need to understand why you want a resistor to do pull-ups :)
~Charlie
Click to expand...
Well, because to do a push-up you need a boost circuit, which is generally done with
an inductor, diode, and switch, not a resistor.
:)
 
While the Raspberry Pi certainly is nicer than the Arduino, there's really no big reason to have that level of power for a reef controller. Hell I picked up a premade, Typhon, for my LEDs it was the "I don't have the time to bother with this crap" price that made it perfect for what I have :D

That said they have both an Arduino for Dummies, and Raspberry Pi for Dummies books, so options exist to teach yourself. Hell might even be available at your local library
 
My Raspberry Pi is still sitting in its box with the Gertboard. I actually have two Gertboards because element14 messed up my order but I had to pay for both. =/

If you guys want, maybe we can all collaborate and build some software together if we decide on the same platform (i.e. RPi). :)
 
Denzil - I like that idea for sure. The reason for leaning towards Arduino was certainly because of the RA but I'm really looking a this form a hobbyist's perspective. I'm sure I can extrapolate what I learn hands-on with a Raspberry Pi to work with an Arduino as well. Like Mark said above - it would be rather cool to tie the two together as well.

Mike - I always seem to forget about our local library. They do have e-books that I can download as well. I'll check that out and see if I can find something there when I'm done with the other "Dummies" book I picked up last night.

Mark - 1/2 way through chapter one and that's still a foreign language to me :) I do have a slightly better understanding of electricity now though! Baby steps...

~Charlie
 
sfsuphysics said:
While the Raspberry Pi certainly is nicer than the Arduino, there's really no big reason to have that level of power for a reef controller. Hell I picked up a premade, Typhon, for my LEDs it was the "I don't have the time to bother with this crap" price that made it perfect for what I have :D

That said they have both an Arduino for Dummies, and Raspberry Pi for Dummies books, so options exist to teach yourself. Hell might even be available at your local library
Click to expand...

It all depends on what you want.
I agree that a normal controller really needs very little horsepower.
But what is the fun in having "normal"? 8)

One big issue with Arduino is tools and debug.
For Arduino, you have a weird mixture of a C like "sketch" and C++ libraries, compiled on a PC, that you then download and run.
Debug is mostly limited to prints through the serial port.
Others may differ, but personally I get pretty frustrated.

Another issue is network and connectivity.
I have attached the ethernet board to the Arduino, and yeah, it kinda works.
But if you start adding DHCP, let alone a real server, it pretty quickly overwhelms it.

Another is code space. The standard Arduino is really limited on code and memory.

With the Pi, it is basically a full on computer, at essentially the same price.
BUT: I have not had time to get one and poke around yet. I am sure it has its issues as well.
And a BIG downside to the Pi is the connectivity. Compared to the Arduino Mega, it is a joke.
 
denzil said:
My Raspberry Pi is still sitting in its box with the Gertboard. I actually have two Gertboards because element14 messed up my order but I had to pay for both. =/

If you guys want, maybe we can all collaborate and build some software together if we decide on the same platform (i.e. RPi). :)
Click to expand...
We can try. Doubt we will all agree, but fun nonetheless.
 
Can you run a web service on the Pi? That's one of the things I see lacking in the Adruino now. If you can run the Arduino from the Pi along with a web server to configure/control/log info I can see that being useful.
 
Piper said:
Can you run a web service on the Pi? That's one of the things I see lacking in the Adruino now. If you can run the Arduino from the Pi along with a web server to configure/control/log info I can see that being useful.
Click to expand...

Well, there are web servers, and there are WEB SERVERS.

You can run some sort of simple web server on arduino.
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/WebServer
But more than one client, or any real page, and it will likely run out of code space fast.

For the Pi, you can run Apache, SQL, PHP, and whatever else, and basically run a full website like this one.
BUT: Those all come with a lot of baggage.
So if all you want is to have your iPhone tweak the dosing schedule, it is hard to say which
would take longer to set up.
 
I wonder if the Gertboard is comparably better in capability to the Mega? I know the Gertboard is supposed to open up a lot more COM ports.

Check here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/gertboard
 
Piper, did u ever figure out your pull-up resistors question?

I used to build embedded control systems, designed my own electronics hardware & circuit boards & wrote firmware to control microcontrollers and microprocessors. So I can discuss circuit design well enough.
 
denzil said:
I wonder if the Gertboard is comparably better in capability to the Mega? I know the Gertboard is supposed to open up a lot more COM ports.

Check here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/gertboard
Click to expand...

"Mega" is a bit confusing, since ATmega can be confused with Arduino Mega.

The Gertboard:
Uses ATmega328, and brings out 30 of those pins:
(14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs)
Adds 6 high power open collector.
Adds a motor driver off of the PWM.
Adds 12 Buffered I/O

The Arduino Mega:
Used ATmega2560, and brings out most of those which include:
54 digital input/output pins (of which 14 can be used as PWM outputs),
16 analog inputs,
4 UARTs

So in general, the Arduino Mega has more I/O. In particular, it has 8 more PWM.
But having those 6 high powered open collector outputs is very handy.
 
rygh said:
denzil said:
I wonder if the Gertboard is comparably better in capability to the Mega? I know the Gertboard is supposed to open up a lot more COM ports.

Check here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/gertboard
Click to expand...

"Mega" is a bit confusing, since ATmega can be confused with Arduino Mega.

The Gertboard:
Uses ATmega328, and brings out 30 of those pins:
(14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs)
Adds 6 high power open collector.
Adds a motor driver off of the PWM.
Adds 12 Buffered I/O

The Arduino Mega:
Used ATmega2560, and brings out most of those which include:
54 digital input/output pins (of which 14 can be used as PWM outputs),
16 analog inputs,
4 UARTs

So in general, the Arduino Mega has more I/O. In particular, it has 8 more PWM.
But having those 6 high powered open collector outputs is very handy.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the detailed comparison. I'm glad I got the Gertboard.

Considering that I'll be letting my tank sit for six months to let it cycle and establish itself, I may dip back into building a controller instead of using the money that I'm saving for it... could better use it to pay my bills, haha. Would be fun to have (yet) another side project, hehe.
 
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